Validation of Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting (TAMDAR) Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Wind Sensors During the 2003 Atlantic THORPEX Regional Campaign and the Alliance Icing Research Study (AIRS II)

NASA Langley Research Center has led the development of the TAMDAR sensor. Among other measurements, TAMDAR is designed to measure in-situ temperature, relative humidity and flight level winds. In order to determine their viability to significantly augment domestic Meteorological Data Communications Reporting System (MDCRS) and the international Aircraft Meteorological Data Reporting (AMDAR) system observational databases to improve the performance of regional and global numerical weather prediction models, TAMDAR data is compared with validation data from 21 flights of the UND Citation II. This aircraft participated in both the 2003 Atlantic THORPEX Regional Campaign and the Alliance Icing Research Study from November 17 to December 17, 2003. In addition to evaluating the overall performance of the TAMDAR system, separate emphasis is made comparisons to satellite-derived products from GOES, AVHRR and MODIS.